Early August

Dinner Time

When the Ishiyama family plus Xavier sat down for dinner, the miso soup had already been served out to each place setting. A large pot of Soba noodles sat in the middle of the table with a heaping mound of the lightly battered shrimp next to it. Yumi felt her mouth water and she dug right it, as did her family. She also kept an eye on Xavier, who sat for a moment in wide-eyed shock at the way her and her family were happily, and noisily, slurping down their soup. He gingerly brought his own bowl to his mouth in an attempt to mimic his hosts, albeit slower and a bit more quietly.

"How do you like the soup?" Akiko asked Xavier when she finished hers.

"It's good, thank you," he replied, lowering the bowl from his lips. He seemed to enjoy the flavor well enough, but it was pretty clear that the traditional Japanese table manners displayed around the room had him pretty uncomfortable.

"Just slurp it down, it tastes better that way!" Takeo encouraged Xavier with a laugh while he started dishing himself a small hill of soba and shrimp, completely oblivious to the young man's unease. Hiroki started to lightly chuckle at the slightly appalled look on Xavier's face at the noises he started making with his own soup before Yumi kicked her brother under the table. A minute later, his soup was gone. He went to load up his plate with soba noodles and shrimp with his chopsticks. He was reasonably successful with the noodles, but some of the pieces of shrimp took a couple tries.

"Xavier, I'm sure that Yumi has told us before, but what is it that you're studying in school?" Yumi's mother asked when he no longer had to concentrate on dishing his food.

"I like computers, and I like teaching, so I figured I'd try to teach programming. Most other programmers I've known aren't really good with people so there's probably a niche there that needs to be filled." Yumi smiled at him being confident for probably the first time this evening.

"Hey, you'd probably get along well with Jeremy and Aelita!" Exclaimed Hiroki. "They're both incredible with computers."

"Yeah, so your sister told me," replied Xavier. "Though from what she's said, they're both probably far beyond my abiliti-OW!"

"Are you alright!?" Asked Yumi as Xavier pulled his chopsticks out of his right hand with his left.

"Yeah, my hand's cramping a little, that's all." He started stretching out his fingers on the edge of the table. Meanwhile, Yumi silenced another round of Hiroki's barely stifled chuckling with another kick under the table.

"We have some forks in the kitchen if you'd prefer to use that," Akiko offered sympathetically.

Xavier cast his eyes down in embarrassment. "Umm... yeah, if you don't mind." She went to the kitchen, came back and handed the utensil to the blond. "Thanks..." he muttered sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it, I remember one time that Yumi got frustrated enough to pull out a fork too!" Hiroki exclaimed. Looking at Yumi he added with a smirk, "you were acting weird the whole evening..." Yumi looked at him with eyes wide in shock, completely unaware of what he was talking about. Glancing at Xavier, her brother's claim seemed to make him feel a bit more comfortable. At least that was good. "You dressed really funny the next morning too." The extra piece of information made the rest of it click and Yumi glared at the table and started fuming at the memory of Odd's behavior while in her body.

"I... wasn't really myself that day..." Yumi muttered. The inside joke felt lame even to her and didn't lift her spirits any.

Yumi's father looked up from the food he'd been completely preoccupied with and chimed in, "you acted pretty strange there for a couple of years... You certainly had your mother and I worried with the way you would sneak out until all hours of the night..."

"DAAAD!" Yumi interrupted. She knew that they were referring to her behavior during the fight against XANA, but her old excuse of 'being in love' wasn't currently an option... Hiroki held his smirk knowingly, but to his credit, and Yumi's gratitude, he didn't say anything else. Xavier, on the other hand, regarded the whole exchange with surprised, yet amused, interest.

"Alright, that's enough you two. That was a long time ago and this is not the time for that discussion." Yumi breathed a small sigh of relief and shot her mother a look of gratitude for the rescue. She glanced at Xavier and was very dismayed to see the curiosity plainly displayed on his face. There was no way he wasn't going to ask about her late nights from high school later. Suddenly, she felt very thankful for her family's intervening presence. Despite her current frustration with him, she also had a lot more respect for Odd for being able to fend off Sissi's curiosity for as long as he did when they started getting close and before they started dating. She made a mental note to ask one of them about it later.

With that mess of a conversation ended, the family went back to their food and safer topics of conversation like school. Xavier was a lot more successful with the fork than with the chopsticks as well, though his embarrassment was pretty clear to see. Even so, the rest of the dinner was pretty uneventful, and maybe even a little dull, but after the way the dinner started, Yumi found it quite preferable!

Yumi's mother collected the dishes and headed to the kitchen, Hiroki went back upstairs to do more homework, and her dad went to the home office to try to deal with something his work had called him about, leaving Yumi and Xavier. Having exams coming up, she hoped he didn't linger so she could study, but she didn't want to kick him out either. Fortunately, he seemed to have similar ideas and she walked him out to his scooter.

"It was nice meeting your family Yumi, they seem like nice people." Xavier said while suiting up for the ride home.

"Yeah, they are. It's not a perfect family, but we all care about each other. That's the main thing."

Xavier smirked and said with a laugh, "and you're going to have to tell me about those late-night adventures your parents hinted at some time!"

Yumi felt her stomach seem to fold in on itself and she looked at the ground while rubbing the back of her neck. "Yeah..." she said slowly, "sometime..."

Xavier gently lifted her head back up by her chin. "Hey, don't worry about it. If you're not ready to talk about it, then that's fine. I promised you I wasn't going to pressure you into things you weren't comfortable with and I meant that?" Yumi offered a little smile.

"Thanks."

He pulled his hand away. "Since it's finals next week, I doubt we will be able to see each other outside of class, so I guess this is goodbye until the end of next week.

"Yeah... I'll be glad when it's over."

"Me too. Goodnight Yumi." He kissed her goodbye, mounted his scooter and rode away.

Before walking back in, Yumi checked the time on her phone. She was surprised to see that Ulrich had left her a message; she hadn't felt it vibrate.

'I know you're going to be busy tonight, but would you be able to talk for a little bit?'

'I can do our stay-on-the-line thing, but I've got to study for finals next week,' she replied.

'It'll just be a few minutes, there's just something I figured I should tell you.'

She thought for a moment before replying again, 'can you wait ten to fifteen minutes?'

'Yes.'

With that Yumi headed inside. Her mother walked out of the kitchen as she was heading toward the stairway.

"Well, he seems like a nice boy, very polite too."

"Yes, he is."

"It's too bad about the chopsticks though." Yumi scowled.

"Was it really that big of a deal?" She grumbled.

"Of course not." Akiko assured, walking up and absently brushing a few strands of Yumi's hair that had fallen out of place behind her ear. "It's just that he was obviously embarrassed by it and I rather feel bad about that. He shouldn't feel ashamed about not being good at something he's never done before." Upon finding out that she had merely misunderstood her mother, Yumi's irritation subsided.

"Ok then, I'm headed to my room to study for finals."

"I imagine we probably won't be seeing much of you for the next week then."

"No, probably not."

"Ok, next time I go shopping I'll make sure to get some snacks you can help yourself to if you get hungry." Yumi grinned in appreciation.

"Thanks mom!"

Before getting to her room, she noticed Hiroki's door was cracked and decided to have a few words with him. She knocked and he told her to come in.

"What's up sis?"

She smiled at her brother. "You might have embarrassed me a little bit tonight, but I could tell you were trying to be nice to Xavier and I wanted to say thanks for that."

"You're welcome." It looked like he was about to say something else, but Yumi's phone buzzed with a message from Ulrich.

'Ready?'

Yumi smiled and messaged back.

'Two minutes.'

When she looked back up Hiroki was leering at her.

"What?" She asked.

"Nothing..." Yumi wasn't convinced, but she didn't have the time to get into it, so she let it go.

"Ok then, I've got to go." She turned and started walking away. As she was walking through the door, she heard Hiroki give out a frustrated sigh and she looked back to see him shaking his head. She shook her head as well in confusion at his behavior.

Arriving at her room she closed the door and sat down at her desk. Plugging her headphones into her phone, she scrolled until she found Ulrich's name and hit call.

"Hi Yumi."

"Hey Ulrich, how's it going?"

"Pretty well I guess." There was an awkward silence on the line for a minute. Yumi knew that Ulrich had something to say and she intended on letting him get it out, but he seemed hesitant. "I heard that your parents met Xavier today, how'd it go?" Yumi jerked her head back in surprise at Ulrich bringing him up. She took a breath to steel herself for the conversation to come and started talking.

"It went pretty well actually. Hiroki behaved himself which was good. Unfortunately, my dad brought up my sneaking out when we were still fighting XANA, so I can expect to be asked about that later." Ulrich groaned.

"Any idea what you're going to say?" Yumi sighed.

"Not really. I've been thinking I might ask Odd or Sissi how he kept it under wraps from her for so long."

"That's not going to help."

"Huh, why's that?" Yumi asked.

"I asked Sissi about it once because I was curious. We all knew that she already knew something was up before we filled her in on everything," he told her.

"Oh, what did she say?"

"Shortly after her and Odd started hanging out she told him that she knew we had secrets, and probably had good reason for keeping them, but wasn't going to ask about them because she couldn't handle him lying to her anymore. She had already let him see her at her most vulnerable by that time so that makes sense." Disappointed that their story wasn't going to be any help, Yumi started tracing the wood grain in her desk absently with her finger. "She also said that knowing that we had a big secret that she wasn't in on started to really hurt after a while. Not just with Odd either, but with all of us." Upon hearing that, her heart plummeted to her stomach. Xavier was a trustworthy person, she knew that, but she also really didn't want to tell him about Lyoko, not to mention that it would be betraying the trust of the rest of the group! Sissi had only been let in on Lyoko after a proving herself to everyone individually, and with everyone scattered around the world Xavier would never have that chance...

"I guess that would hurt after a while..." Yumi muttered.

"Don't worry about it too much. If it gets to a point to where you want to talk to Xavier about it, I promise I'll be fair to him. From what you've told me he seems pretty trustworthy, and I trust your judgement. Besides, as long as you're happy, I can be happy about that."

"Thanks, Ulrich," she said quietly. Tears started to well up as Yumi felt her heart melt a little.

"That's not actually why I wanted to talk to you though." Ulrich started to sound nervous, and it in turn made Yumi nervous about it.

"Ok... what's up then?" Yumi asked.

"Well... I've got a date next Friday..." Yumi's heart pounded in her chest and her hands became clammy and began to shake. "Her name's Anja and a friend from class set us up. I've met her a few times before and she seemed pretty nice."

This is a good thing. He's moving on, just like me.

Yumi made herself think while she forced a number of deep breaths that she tried to keep quiet. "Good, that's good. I hope that it goes well for you." She replied, sounding a lot more sincere than she felt.

"Yeah, me too. We probably won't be able to talk that evening either because of it."

You're probably not going to be able to talk to Ulrich as much as you do now.

Sissi's words from a couple weeks prior planted themselves firmly in the forefront of her mind, and upon becoming reality they stung... badly. Still, Ulrich had been nothing but supportive of her, so at the very least she owed it to him to return the favor.

"That's ok, we'll just have to talk a different day then," Yumi heard herself say.

"Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, I've got to get to studying."

"Me too. Did you want to stay in the line?" She asked hopefully, not wanting to let him go just yet.

"As much as I'd love that, I really need to not have any distractions right now. Sorry Yumi." Yumi's heart sank yet again, but she understood. He had expressed several times over the semester that he'd been having a very hard time with a couple of his courses. If said he needed no distractions, then he meant it.

"Ok Ulrich, I guess I'll talk to you later."

"Yeah. Goodnight Yumi."

"Goodnight, Ulrich."

Yumi ended the call and pulled her headphones off. Shaking her head to clear it of everything but the cramming she had ahead of her, she cracked open her books and hit them hard! A few exhausting hours later she called it quits and got ready for bed. Lying in bed a little later, she felt a couple of tears drop from her eyes onto the pillow. Try as she might to convince herself that it was a good thing that both her and Ulrich were both moving on, there was one question she couldn't answer…

If moving on was such a good thing, then why did it hurt so much?

A/N: I decided to have a little bit of fun with the beginning of this one and embarrass some people! That being said, the plot thickens!

As always, let me know what you think!